Genealogy 101 - Use of Newspapers in
Genealogy Research

The ONE place you might find birth, death, marriage dates,
parents' and children's names, occupation, military role, family history,
reunions, obituary with cemetery name, cause of death, deeds, probate, and
more!

Use of Newspapers in Genealogy Research
By Judith Florian

Newcomers
to genealogy research may be overwhelmed at the prospect of searching
microfilmed newspapers. Most newspaper collections have never been
indexed, and searches can be tedious. However, old newspapers are full
of interesting bits of family information.

Most searchers focus on one goal with newspapers: to locate the obituary
of an ancestor. Some obituaries are gold mines, giving place of birth,
parentsí names, marriage information, childrenís names, church
affiliation, and cemetery name. Yet, many other obituaries are very
lacking in details, possibly not even giving the exact date of death and
no family details. My ancestorís obituary said only that he awoke and
before the morning was done he was "a corpse." After high
hopes to find information, his write-up was certainly a disappointment!
These short write ups were common in older papers until approximately
the 1930s when more standardized obituaries were used. Unless your
ancestor was considered a pioneer family, a long-time citizen of that
area, or was a very prominent person, the details of their family
relationships and details of their life were not included. By the early
1900s, more information was given, and burial place was included in at
least 80% of obituaries. With the cemetery name, you may be able to
track down cemetery or church records, if these exist.

If
your obituary search ends as mine did, what are other ways newspapers
can be useful to your genealogy pursuit? The first thing I recommend to
those using old newspapers for the first time is to put a microfilm roll
on a machine and just look over the issues. Look to see how the
newspaper is set up; each newspaper develops its own style, which
changes from early 1800s through the lifetime of the paper. Generally
though, the front page contains national and local political news, and
high-interest local news such as accidents, murders, or stories
affecting local employment and economy. Page two continues with these
stories, but may also include columns of specific regional news. Most
old papers had "correspondence from" small communities and
townships of the county. These columns usually were named things like
"Local Briefs," "Local Glances," or other such
titles. These local glances columns are one of the first areas I check
after looking for obituaries. Local Glances are one to two sentences
about local citizens, mostly dealing with who traveled where or visited
whom, who moved where, and other local tid-bits. These may not seem
important, but they help in two ways. First, it gives an added insight
into an ancestorís daily life, and more importantly, it may give
relationship information that is new or verifies what you have. Here is
one fictional example: "Charles Algire and daughter, Mrs. Ann
Curry, were Sunday visitors at the home of Mr. Algireís aunt, Mrs.
Abbey Smith." I just found a piece tonight that mentions my
great-great- grandfather and great-grandfather ("and
children") visiting the home of my great-great-great grandfather,
the father of Mrs. Lane: "Mr. and Mrs. Frank Lane and children and
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Gladfeller [sic] and children of the Wylandville
section, have returned home after spending a few days at the home of Mr.
and Mrs. Thomas Waller." This gem was buried on page 4, which is
where Editors used additional "Local Glances" as fillers in
between advertisements which appear on pages 3 and 4 generally.

Pages 3 and 4 of old newspapers mostly contain advertisements, want ads,
and legal notes. Before you skip those pages, reconsider. Advertisements
first give you impressions about life when your ancestor was living, and
one of the store owners may just be related to you! Want Ads, unlike
today, often mention a name of the subscriber. Legal notices, while
difficult to read, are usually about Estate Notices or Land Sales.

Estate Notices will give name of deceased, and the paperís date will
give you an idea of death date, if you didnít know date before. These
notices also are "signed" by the executor of the estate;
executors are often relatives. Land Sales give you basic information
found in deeds, but usually in less detail. It gives the name of the
land tract, location, neighborís names sometimes, total acreage, and
date set for the sale.

Deed Indexes will point you to the Deed,
but these newspaper land sale notices are a nice compliment to the
actual Deed. Remember also in looking at Deed Index Books that many
early deeds were never recorded at the time of the actual sale.

A Deed
Transfer often was not filed in sales between family members until the
land was sold the next time, which could be 20 even 40 years later.
Documents out of the correct time period can be confusing and lead a
researcher astray especially if there were many same-name persons living
in a small area. Land in one of my early families transferred at the
marriage of the second son in the 1830s, but a deed was not recorded for
it until the 1860s. As an early researcher, I skipped reading the 1860s
deed because it was "too late" for the Joseph I was seeking.
Wrong! It was the same property, and I lost months of research time,
simply because I didnít look at that 1860s deed. In the 1860s, 2 Deeds
appeared, one documenting the 1830s transfer, and one for the newest
sale. So, while actual deeds are the most important document, newspaper
Legal Notices may be the only real-time information of earlier land
sales.

After looking for obituaries (and in later years separate funeral
notices), Local Glances type columns, and Legal Notices/advertisement
pages, I use my eyes to scan articles on all the pages. Titles may be
deceiving but the articles may mention employee names, such as at a
mill, mine or factory, or may name local political candidates. One of
these employees, candidates or elected officials may be a member of the
family you are seeking.

While
some researchers choose to focus only on primary persons in a family,
like research of a direct line, it can be helpful to at least note the
newspaper date where you see others of the same surname. You might not
know a connection, yet, to that individual, but if you find a connection
later, you will know what newspaper date to re-check.

If
an article is of particular interest, or an obituary, you will want to
make a full copy by machine or hand-written. If you write it, take care
to do so exactly as it appears which qualifies as a
"transcript" of the item. If the article contains a lot of
unnecessary writing, or if you are not sure a person is part of your
family, you may choose to just do an "abstract," which
contains only pertinent information along with the citation. An abstract
of basic information contained in an article might look like this:
(abstract) Charles Smith, W. Pike Run Twp., wife Martha...visited
Marthaís Aunt, Mrs. Hurn, Amity. Include the word abstract so you
wonít get confused later, and it will be clear to another person if
you share your research with someone else in the future. Note: Since you
are not quoting from the source, you do NOT use quotes on abstracted
lines.

Finally,
I have some advice about the citation of newspapers which I guarantee
will save you time, aggravation and frustration later. The best
newspaper citations contain as much information as you can find. The
front page of every issue contains the mast head where a newspaper name
appears.

There
are several things to look for on the front page:

Title of Newspaper,
Issue or Volume (Vol.) and Number (No.). Some papers contain
"The" on the mast head; others do not contain the word
"The." If a mast head does not contain "The" it is
officially not part of the newspaperís name, but if it is, then it
should be written as such. As examples: the Washington Reporter,
Vol. 4, No. 11 or The Herald, Vol. 1, No. 4. Use underline for a
newspaper title, because you will need to put the title of articles in
quotation marks: for example, the Washington Reporter, Vol. 4,
No. 11, "Death Takes Civil War Veteran," p. 2. Of note,
sometimes the same newspaper had name changes over the decades so it is
always best to check the masthead on every issue and not assume it is
the same title.

Next, you need to write the article name, exactly as it
appears, with capital letters or small-case as it is shown; this is
called "transcribed as is." Put the article name in quotation
marks after the newspaper title.

Then find the page number. You may not
find a page number typed on each page of very old papers, but you can
easily count them. As well, the oldest papers contain the same number of
pages in each issue, often around 4 pages, so once you are familiar with
the layout, it is easy to figure out, or run the microfilm back to page
one and count as you move forward. If you are working with
sectioned papers, include the section with page number, as in: Article
from the Washington Reporter, Vol. 4, No. 11, "Estate
Sales," page D-4, for Charles Smith. For an obituary or
funeral notice, I write it the citation like this: The transcript of the
obituary of Charles Smith from the Washington Reporter, Vol. 4,
No. 11, page D-4 (followed by a colon, and then I type the full
obituary).

Old
newspapers are gold mines for genealogy researchers! While it takes time
to search them, it can certainly be very worthwhile to both new and
experienced genealogists. You can make newspaper searches easier by
becoming familiar with how a certain newspaper is set up and the types
of content you might find.